Microwave oven: A tool for quick response in shade development and lab-to-bulk shade translation in reactive dyeing

摘要

This paper deals with calibration and standardization of microwave oven, selection of energy level, configuration and placement of fabric swatch in the oven and fixation time to get optimum results viz., shade closest to that obtainable by the cold pad-batch method. Both vinyl sulphone as well as hetero-bifunctional dyes have been studied. The major finding has been that high energy and low exposure time in microwave oven gives comparable results to those by pad-batch method in terms of K/S values, bleeding in post-dyeing wash-off and dry & wet rub fastness. Several bulk trials have been taken successfully.